The Jamaica Slave Rebellion - BBC Witness

Enslaved Africans are forced to work in sugar cane fields - the hours are long and there are frequent, brutal punishments. They have endured these conditions for 200 years.

By 1831 the anti-slavery movement is gathering pace and the slaves decide to take action - by going on strike.

Samuel Sharpe became a Jamaican national hero as he led the island's slaves in a rebellion against the overseers and sugar plantation owners.

The rebellion was brutally crushed, but over time, the rebellion had a significant impact - and two years later in 1833 the Slavery Abolition Act is passed.

Transcript

(Broadcast 1st
October 2013)

Program Producer:

Hello and thank you for downloading Witness from the BBC World
Service. And today we’re taking you back to the 27th of December
almost 180 years ago. On the Caribbean island of Jamaica an uprising is about
to begin, Alan Johnston reports.

Alan Johnston:

It is 1831 and in the British colony of Jamaica the vast majority
of people are slaves. They’re forced to labour in the sugarcane fields and
often the work goes on twelve hours a day. The slaves are overseen by men
wielding whips and there are frequent brutal punishments. A Baptist missionary
called Henry Bleby is appalled by what he sees on the island and in the
language of his time he writes this account of a scene he witnessed in the
countryside.

Henry Bleby:

On reaching the estate I was informed that six Negroes were
to be punished. The first was a man of about 35 years of age; the cattle herder.
His offence was having allowed a mule to go astray. At the command of the
overseer he proceeded to strip off part of his clothes and laid himself flat on
his belly, his back and buttocks being uncovered. One of the drivers then began
flogging him with the cart whip; this whip is about ten feet long and is an
instrument of terrible power. It is whirled by the operator around his head and
then brought down with a rapid motion of the arm upon the victim, causing the
blood to spring at every stroke.

When I first saw this spectacle, now for the first time before
my eyes and saw the degraded and mangled victim writhing and groaning. I felt
horror struck, I trembled and felt sick. As soon as the scene was over the
overseer came into the hall and asked me to drink some rum with him. I told him
I was sick and could taste nothing, that I was overwhelmed with horror at the scene
I just witnessed.

He said it was not a pleasant duty certainly, but it was an indispensable
one. And that I would soon get used as others did to such spectacles.

Alan Johnston:

Jamaica’s slaves have endured their plight for more than 200
years. But now they know that in Britain the campaign to abolish slavery is gathering
momentum. They believe their freedom is coming and they decide to press for it
by mounting a strike, they decide they won’t return to work after Christmas. And
on this day December 27th they rise up.

Henry Bleby:

In the evening as it grew dark the first indication of the
actual revolt was given by the burning of the houses and sugar works on a large
plantation. It is impossible to describe the consternation that prevailed in
the town and neighbourhood of Montego Bay where these fires commenced and the
horizon for miles was lighted up with a strong lurid glare by the burning estates.
The same evening the insurgents made an attack upon Montpelier, they approached
in two parties raising loud discordant noise with horns.

The Seventh company of Saint James’s regiment boldly stood
to repel the assailants but owing to the darkness of night, they could not see
where to direct their fire except by the flashes of the insurgent’s muskets.

Alan Johnston:

Soon plantations were burning all across Western Jamaica. The
slaves had managed to organise some small units of fighters but when the
colonial authorities rallied and sent in their military the rebels were hopelessly
outgunned and quickly overpowered.

Henry Bleby:

Both regular troops and militia were employed with decisive
effect, reducing the insurgents to submission. This was not a difficult matter
where the troops had only a disorganised and for the most part an unarmed mob
of Negroes to contend with. On several occasions small bodies of Negroes lying
in ambush ventured to assail detachments of the military. But this was only for
a moment, a volley would generally suffice to scatter them.

Sixteen bodies dragged into the road were putrefying in the
sun when we pass by presenting a horrible spectacle. Hundreds of crows were
feeding upon them, and scarcely lifted their drowsy wings while our horses
stepped over the remnants. Their lay one body, the head of which was completely
stripped of flesh by the crows. And the bare skull, still attached to the
partly clothed body seemed to grin at us as we passed.

Alan Johnston:

Around 200 slaves died in the crushing of the revolt, and
then several hundred more were put on trial.

Henry Bleby:

At first shooting was the favoured method of execution, and
many were thus disposed of. But when the novelty of this had ceased the gallows
was put in requisition. Half an hour only was the time generally allowed to the
condemned slaves between trial and execution. And it often occurred that men
were tried, sentenced and executed all within one hour and a half. The bodies
remain stiffened in the breeze until the court martial had provided another batch
of victims for the hands of a brutal Negro who acted as executioner.

Alan Johnston:

There were around 300 executions altogether, one of the most
prominent rebel leaders was a slave called Samuel Sharpe. He was a man in his
early 30s who had become a Baptist Christian. Daddy Sharpe as he was known was
regarded with affection and respect by his fellow slaves, and he was said to
have been a charismatic speaker delivering inspiring messages of hope for
freedom. His fellow Baptist Henry Bleby was allowed to visit him in jail.

Henry Bleby:

I had much conversation with him while he was in
confinement. And found him certainly the most intelligent and remarkable slave
I had ever met. I heard him two or three times deliver a speech, I was amazed both
at the power and freedom with which he spoke. He appeared to have the feelings
and passions of his hearers completely at his command. He thought and he had
learned from the Bible that the whites had no more right to hold the black
people in slavery than the black people had to make the white people slaves.

Minister, he said, I would rather die upon yonder gallows
than live in slavery. He expressed deep regret that such extensive destruction
of property and life had resulted from the conspiracy he had promoted. His only
object was to obtain freedom.

Sharpe was the last victim that was put to death for taking
part in the insurrection. He was executed at Montego Bay on the 23rd
of May 1832. His execution excited a great deal of interest, and a considerable
number of spectators assembled to witness it. He marched to the spot where so
many had been sacrificed to the demon of slavery with a firm and dignified
step. I could not help feeling deep sorrow and indignation as I turned away
from his death scene and brushed away the tears. That such a man as Samuel
Sharpe should be thus immolated at the polluted shrine of slavery.

Alan Johnston:

But Samuel Sharpe did not die in vain. Over time the
uprising would have a significant impact. Diana Payton is a reader in Caribbean
history at the University of Newcastle in the north of England.

Diana Payton:

This is a really crucial event. It demonstrates to people
back in Britain that the level of repression that’s needed to sustain slavery
is just going to get more and more intense all the time. And in the end, it
comes to seem that that’s not worth it, that if slavery is going to produce
such extraordinary scenes of brutality more and more people in Britain aren’t
prepared to support that anymore.

So, this rebellion I mean on its own you couldn’t say it
ended slavery, but it contributes to the kind of environment in the early
1830s. that means that slavery is no longer politically viable and you know its
only a couple of years later that you get the passage of the act for the
abolition of slavery and the beginnings of the dismantling of the slave system
itself.

Alan Johnston:

The courage of those who rose up in 1831 is fully appreciated
in Jamaica today. Samuel Sharpe is officially recognised as a national hero; he
appears on the country’s $50 banknote and the place where he was hanged in
Montego Bay is now known as Sam Sharpe Square.